Tag Archives: bead embroidery

Anti-Pence Fly Embroidery Art for this election season.

Anti Mike Pence Fly Embroidery Art by Suzanne Forbes Oct 20 2020The anti-Pence fly embroidery is done!

Of course, I want to be very clear: I am a huge fan of the fly that landed on Mike Pence’s head and lingered there, vomiting. It is Mike Pence who I am deeply opposed to.

Anti Mike Pence Fly Embroidery Art by Suzanne Forbes Oct 20 2020This piece has so much queer love woven into it.

It is sewn on white muslin from the voluminous white muslin gown that came with my Sideshow Bride of Frankenstein doll, like the Devil/Flower Mantis.

I’ve been cutting that gown up and using it for years, it’s the only piece of white fabric in our house! (You can see the custom burlesque outfit I made for the doll to wear instead here.)

Anti Mike Pence Fly Embroidery Art by Suzanne Forbes Oct 20 2020 The fly has layers.

There are three shades of tulle, grey crystal beads, pearls, smoke Swarovski crystals, many shades of black and grey and Anthracite crystals, two kinds of black sparkle thread, two kinds of silver embroidery thread, and three tiny piss-yellow crystals.

Anti Mike Pence Fly Embroidery Art by Suzanne Forbes Oct 20 2020 The fly has a hundred threads of RAINBOW holographic filament over each eye.

Using the holo filament, which is incredibly fine, is time-consuming. But it is ritually important, like in this piece.

UPDATE: FLY SOLD, MONEY SENT TO FRIEND! Mantis still available!

The fly piece is a fundraiser for a US friend who is in big trouble. It’s part of a big fundraiser art sale coming soon, WITH shipping cause my hub loves this friend too and is gonna handle it. It’s a 250 euro donation to the friends’ paypal plus shipping. Email me if you’re interested!

West Berlin mantis party redux, five years later!

UV resin and 3d printer pen mantis by Suzanne Forbes sept 30 2020My UV resin experiments just continue to get wilder.

I made this mantis using a green floral wire armature, then layers of green and yellow filament from my 3D printer pen.

3d printer pen and UV resin Mantis Work in Progress by Suzanne ForbesThe 3D printer pen filament helped to bulk out and define the structure, while still letting light through.

I like using the pen because it is fast and dirty construction, which suits my essential nature. I also used a piece of pretty green metallic foil I had saved from a package or something to fill out the mantis’s butt.

3d printer pen and UV resin Mantis Work in Progress by Suzanne Forbes 2Then I started wiring thousands of green glass beads all over it.

I strung the beads, crystals and pearls on fine gauge colored craft wire that I looped in and out of the wire armature.

3d printer pen and UV resin Mantis Work in Progress by Suzanne Forbes About halfway into the beading I started stabilizing the bead strands with blobs of green-tinted UV resin!

This was during the very intense August heat wave in Berlin, so I was hanging out in the library with my husband in the air-conditioning. I used both the sunlight coming in the window and my high-powered nail artist’s uv lamp to cure the resin.

3d printer pen and UV resin Mantis Work in Progress by Suzanne Forbes I needed more sunlight to make the drips, though!

Because UV resin cures almost instantly in sunlight, I could sit out on our balcony dripping and dropping blobs of resin all over the armature, creating transparent structure and threads of color. It was very hot, but I figure it was good to get the vitamin D in.

UV resin and 3d printer pen mantis by Suzanne Forbes sept 30 2020I made the wings using florists wire and some green glitter tulle I got five years ago.

The first summer we were here, I had very limited art materials. I had a sketchbook, pencils and pens, and the embroidery materials and fabric that Beloved Friend-Muse-Patron Eva Galperin bought me at the craft store at the mall at Stadtmitte.

UV resin and 3d printer pen mantis and alien venus flytrap by Suzanne Forbes sept 30 2020Of course, I keep every scrap of everything.

(See making of the Giant Alien Venus Flytrap, seen above, here!) So I had green tulle left over from when I made the jewelled mantis that summer of 2015, and I used it to cover the floral wire wing shapes, attaching it with UV resin.

UV resin and 3d printer pen mantis by Suzanne Forbes face sept 30 2020I attached the wings and antenna with UV resin, because it is an amazing adhesive.

It is faster than superglue/CA in direct sunlight, and you can use an instantly hardening bolus of it as a base to hold something steady. In the mantis post from 2015 I talk a lot about my lifelong obsession with transparent mediums, and my frustration with the ones available. Which is funny because I have now found a transparent material I really love working with at last!

UV resin and 3d printer pen mantis by Suzanne Forbes 1 sept 30 2020Finishing this mantis on the balcony today, I could really feel the difference in the sun.

Autumn is here and Winter is coming,

So the resin drip art will be ending til next year. We don’t get enough sunlight to make Vitamin D or cure UV resin in the winters here! That’s ok, I have plenty of other weird insect art projects in the pipeline 🙂

The other articulated mantis sculpture is here.